Indonesia confirms 21st BF death

http://www.forbes.com/work/feeds/afx/2006/03/10/afx2585184.h tml

JAKARTA (AFX) - A World Health Organization-affiliated laboratory has confirmed that a three-year-old boy who died last month was infected with the H5N1 strain of the virus, raising Indonesia's bird flu fatality to 21, the health ministry said.

'We have received confirmation from the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) in Atlanta of the case of W, aged three years and nine months, who is now the 21st confirmed bird flu death in Indonesia,' health ministry official Hariyadi Wibisono said.

The boy died at a hospital in the Central Java provincial capital of Semarang on February 28.

Local tests are routinely sent abroad to Hong Kong or the US for confirmation at WHO-approved laboratories.

The confirmation came as a doctor from the main hospital treating bird flu patients in the capital Jakarta warned that the situation is worsening in the country.

Ilham Patu, a doctor and the spokesman for Sulianti Saroso hospital in Jakarta, told Agence France-Presse that 12 suspected bird flu patients are currently being treated there, with the latest admitted overnight.

This year, he warned, 'there have been more and more suspected bird flu patients being admitted to hospitals, which shows that the problem is worsening.'

Health authorities have already warned that they would be ill equipped to deal with a pandemic.

Most cases here have been in the capital and its surroundings, where many people live in close proximity to poultry despite the urban environment, but infections have been found in birds in 26 of Indonesia's 33 provinces.